An Open Letter to the Universe (edit)

Apologies for never writing and calling only sporadically. And late, at that. Guess everyone has their communicative niche, eh?

Things are well in Montreal; life moves at a lovely pace in this city, it's a great combination of beautiful, old architecture with long winding avenues lined with green trees, people's balconies and a bevy of all manner of attitude, drive and desire. Interestingly, consistencies develop no matter where I've been: it's the speed at which the urban community moves that always attracts or repels me from a given locale, big or small. And that, I suspect, is a derivative of the internal mechanisms driving each of us -- which are, in this instance, my own. Some people oscillate better in the burbs, others the city, others the countryside; and to be fair, some people might even do fine on a remote piece of rock in the Mediterranean. Nature moulds us where it sees fit.

Nevertheless, this realization has become a very relevant one -- and not for the temporal or environmental realization that that is (i.e., a particular person in a particular space) -- but rather as a affirmation of one's core effervescence, internal machinations and inherent driving forces. This most recent move has served to (re-)confirm something I'd suspected, irregardless of destination, employment or surroundings: that everywhere is anywhere as long as the personal centre is secure and can confide in itself.

More to the point, this latter core has primarily come to embody self and family and the strengths we each derive therein. The well-being derived from the energies of exposure to knowledge, information, beauty, love and everything in between: good food, laughter, provocative ideas over warm beverages and thoroughly erratic chess are secondary complements to life's diet.

The sum of these has served to expose the fruitlessness of worrying about age, status, finances (to a degree) and destiny. And why is that? Because the great magnet has, does and will continue hurling each of us on its whim, and cull when the spectrum requires calibration, balance or a good laugh. Until then, granted we agree -- subconsciously or otherwise -- that the general purpose of this eighty-year orbit is to consciously and continually contribute to the betterment of our very dear and extremely shared civilization, it must be progress in its truest incarnation and most honest inflection toward which we labour. And, at the end of the day, find me here taking notes thereon.

From here to there,

S*

Ahem...

I don't what it is; I feel like I've lost the ability to anachronize and synthesize the life around me. Maybe it's the different city, maybe it's my current lack of reading, maybe I'm getting old and the drag racing outside doesn't interest me anymore. Nonetheless, as I've always said and written, there appears to be little paths of a graceful nature for overcoming or surpassing or climbing past the thirtieth milestone. And to be truthful, I've accorded little importance to this inevitability, this minor hump in the 'road'. This is a result of the paths of others: uneventful, unimportant, unnoticed, underappreciated. These are the insecurities that surround me like an Iroquois fortress, staves pointed to the firmament. With eyes looking upward, few are aware or interested or knowing of what lies ahead, whether that knowledge be substantial or haphazard, whether tools are available to manage, to mitigate, to handle what is to come, what they are predestined to become or what they are pre-programmed to already be. Definitions aren't always known at the start. People wrestle with them: on beaches, in offices, with sore feet and tired minds; we all discover for good or ill what we're here for, what we're good for and who it is we're meant to mean to ourselves. The inside comes eventually out.

S*
2006.06.16

Subjuntive Tripping

I returned and saw, under the sun, that the race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor
yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but
time and chance happeneth to them all.

Evil falls. But who knows when?
Needles in my eyes won't cripple me tonight alright/
Twisting up my mind please pull me through the light alright.

I feel sleep start out from the tips of my toes and climb up my spine, then nestle warmly against the nape of my neck.

S*

Fave current track: "Needles In My Eyes" - The Beta Band
Current media in progress: Munich, "An Aroma of Coffee" - Dany Laferriere